Obama's grandmother and a "sustainable model" for health care

In this afternoon's Colorado town hall meeting, President Obama used the example of his elderly grandmother--who passed away last year--to debunk the "death panels" portion of ObamaCare.

Funny, after a couple of weeks of denying such a provision in the health care reform bill, the Democrats dropped it.

But as we learned during the Revered Wright brouhaha last year, we know that Obama is not afraid to throw his grandmother under the bus.

He did it again in April:

President Barack Obama said his grandmother's hip-replacement surgery during the final weeks of her life made him wonder whether expensive procedures for the terminally ill reflect a "sustainable model" for health care.

The president's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, had a hip replaced after she was diagnosed with cancer, Obama said in an interview with the New York Times magazine that was published today. Dunham, who lived in Honolulu, died at the age of 86 on Nov. 2, 2008, two days before her grandson’s election victory.

"I don't know how much that hip replacement cost," Obama said in the interview. "I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement just because she’s my grandmother."

Obama said "you just get into some very difficult moral issues" when considering whether "to give my grandmother, or everybody else's aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they’re terminally ill."

Just like last fall's Joe the Plumber episode, these "slip ups" occur when Obama is separated from his teleprompter.

Technorati tags: politics Democrats health universal health care Barack Obama Obama hip replacement death panels